Filmmaker makes online privacy point
Moore, the documentarian turned television personality, turned on the "I see Lucy cam," last week, allowing Internet users around the world to participate in the 24-hour-a-day virtual stakeout of Goldberg's New York City apartment.
So far, the attempt to invade Goldberg's privacy - which apparently breaks no New York laws - has been interesting only in concept. The "highlights" so far, according to the hunter and the hunted: Evidence that Goldberg does not have central air conditioning and that her television was tuned to "Touched By An Angel" on Sunday night.
Moore told Katie Couric on NBC's "Today" show that he conceived the stunt both to promote his TV show, "The Awful Truth," and to send a message to Goldberg after a chance meeting on the set of of the Fox News show "Drudge."
'A threat to the country'
"I was on the show with her ... and she said she didn't think it was wrong to violate somebody's privacy if they were a threat to the country," he said. "And I said how would you like it if I filmed you in your living room. She said, 'Well, if I was a threat to the country, you should.' "
Moore, a left-wing filmmaker best known for his his 1989 documentary "Roger and Me," which detailed his pursuit of General Motors Chairman Roger Smith following the closure of a G.M. plant in Flint, Mich., said he was able to meet that threshold.
"We're ... asking our fellow citizens ... to keep an eye on her in case she's up to something else (that will) take us down another road where we get distracted for another year and a half," he said.
Goldberg, who persuaded Tripp to secretly tape conversations in which Lewinsky discussed her sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton, was initially irked by the Webcam outside her window. "If this is a joke, it isn't funny, and if it's serious, it's probably actionable," she told the New York Post last week.
But by Tuesday, she had not only come to grips with the peeping camera, she had concocted plans to profit from it.
"I'm going to start advertising in my window," she told MSNBC. "For a week I'm advertising the National Enquirer, then I'll do my radio show for a week, then I'm taking bids. ... I'm hoping to interest General Motors in the space."
A spokeswoman for the National Enquirer said she had no knowledge of such an advertising purchase.
As to Moore's contention that she poses a threat to the country, Goldberg said, "He's probably right. We did get the president impeached. God knows where we'll go next."
Moore, who also used his chance encounter with Goldberg to collect a strand of her hair and her makeup sponge for possible DNA testing, says he will be glad to remove the Webcam if Goldberg issues "an apology to the country for putting us through this long national nightmare."
He also expressed hope that she would read the 4th Amendment to the Constitution - the so-called "right to privacy" - which is conveniently reprinted on the Webcam site.
No protection from individuals
But Joel Reidenberg, a law professor at Fordham University in New York City, said the literary agent will find nothing there to suggest she behaved improperly in urging Tripp to tape.
"The U.S. Constitution provides no protection against private citizens," he said. "It provides protection against the government but not against other individuals."
Nor does the Constitution prohibit a person from using surveillance cameras to spy on another individual, as long as the camera is in a public space.
California is the only state that has a law against the use of a camera to record the activities of people, but the so-called "anti-paparazzi" statute only affects photographers who trespass to obtain the shot.